Videogame market set to surpass CD and DVD industries

by Stevie Smith - Nov 7 2008, 15:55

Having already shown continued growth during a time of extreme economic imbalance, the massively profitable videogame industry is shaping up to out perform mainstream heavyweight formats in both the music and video markets.

At least that’s the view of a new report released by retail analyst Verdict Research, which claims UK videogame sales are gathering at such a pace they will soon eclipse both CD and DVD sales for the very first time.

According to the report, videogames have already become the most popular form of entertainment in the UK, while the projected performance shift beyond CD and DVD is expected to take place before the close of 2008.

Verdict Research predicts that videogame sales will have experienced a 42 percent increase by the close of 2008, which will amount to a total of around £4.64 billion GBP for the year. Comparatively, 2008 sales figures for music and video media are expected to hit approximately £4.46 billion GBP by year’s end.

In fleshing out its projections, the retail analyst also notes that the videogame market has more than doubled in value over the course of the last five years, while music sales in retail outlets have become somewhat static and suffered from consumers switching to cheaper online purchases.

Surprisingly, the report suggests that online sales of CD and DVD media have witnessed substantial growth in the UK, while online downloads still only contribute a mere four percent of total market performance.

However, the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) disagrees somewhat with the Verdict report’s findings, and claims its figures are skewed because they take into account games hardware rather than just software.

According to Steve Redmond of the ERA, the organisation’s most recent figures for 2007 show UK games sales of £1.7 billion GBP compared to £1.4 billion GBP for music sales and £2.2 billion GBP for home video.

“Our prediction is that games will overtake video by the end of this year,” commented Mr. Redmond, “but not music and video combined.”

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